Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily since the advent of the Internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well. A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content or services on a website, but electronic commerce may involve the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers have electronic commerce presence on the World Wide Web.
Consequently, eCommerce is becoming ubiquitous to many people in everyday life, spanning financial, telecommunications, information technology, and retail activities. Customers are becoming increasingly dependent on eCommerce web sites to shop, bank, pay bills, and so forth rather than traveling to a brick-and-mortar location or calling by telephone. However, when an eCommerce website experiences an outage, a web page is typically displayed to the customer stating that the function is currently unavailable. The customer is typically directed to try again later or call customer service. Such an approach is not desirable to the customer and may result in the customer using a different business that provides a more satisfying eCommerce experience.